Houses and other buildings may be damaged or destroyed by a variety of events, and under a variety of circumstances. For example, a house could be destroyed by fire; by motion resulting from seismic activity; by the wind force of a hurricane; by flooding; or by various other mechanisms. There may be reason to assess the way in which the house was damaged or destroyed. For example, to say that a house was destroyed by a hurricane provides very little information. Some houses may be able to withstand higher wind speeds than other houses can. Or, some houses may withstand hurricane winds for a longer time than others can before succumbing to the force of the wind. Moreover, hurricane winds destroy houses in different ways. In some cases, the destruction starts when the winds rip the roof off the house, while other houses explode when the wind causes a pressure gradient to form between the inside and outside of the house.
Similarly, other types of events can destroy or damage a house, and the destruction or damage could occur in a variety of ways. For example, an earthquake can damage a house by exerting mechanical pressure on the supporting structures of the house, or by cracking the foundation, or by rupturing a gas main and thereby starting a fire.